Book excerpt: Mary Tyler Moore was a legendary television and film performer who was much loved and lauded by millions as the personification of sweetness and innocence filtered through a sanitized television world. But as fate would have it, Moore was so much more than that. Coming of age at a time when feminism and women’s rights were on the march across the land, Moore’s roles in The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show proved a flashpoint and a flag bearing influence to countless women who had decided in Mary Richards there was the possibility of so much more. In You’re Gonna Make It After All: The Life, Times and Influence of Mary Tyler Moore (Riverdale Avenue Books), New York Times Bestselling Author Marc Shapiro digs deep into her much-celebrated and often turbulent life as filtered through the coming of age of women’s rights led by such luminaries as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan and their triumphs and historical breakthroughs which were often influenced by Moore and her culturally important sitcoms. How the actress reacted to being cast as a feminist icon, her often contrary issues with the women’s movement, how her greatest television hits often brought home important liberal points in a stealth manner and her own political and social values form the backbone of a sociological, political and, yes, traditional celebrity biography that tells more than one expected from a book on somebody the world knows so well. In this thoroughly researched and documented biography, readers will discover… The truth behind the alleged relationship between Mary Tyler Moore and Elvis Presley. What happened on the date between Mary Tyler Moore and Ed Asner Why Mary Tyler Moore’s mother’s alcoholism led to Moore’s physical appearance. How Moore got her revenge on a neighbor who molested her at age six. “Mary Tyler Moore was an important entertainment personality,” author Shapiro states. “But she was also so much deeper than that. Her life and times are already well known. I felt that putting this reluctant feminist in the ring with the coming of equal rights for women would give the picture a different and ultimately insightful twist.”